A homeless man living with AIDS whose body was found on Castro Street in December 2011 died of pneumonia, the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s office recently determined.

Pedro Villamore Jr. (Photo: Courtesy David Kilgore)

Police hadn’t suspected foul play in the death of Pedro Villamore Jr., 44, but the exact reason he died hadn’t been known. The medical examiner’s office concluded its examination in January, and the report was made available last week.

Family and friends had provided housing and other help to Villamore, but just after his brother’s death, Jesse Villamore said, “I guess he doesn’t want to be cooped up in a room or in a hospital. He’d rather be outside.”

David Kilgore, 50, a former partner of Villamore’s who’d remained friends with him, said that months before he died, he’d found a year’s worth of Villamore’s HIV medications that hadn’t been touched.

The medical examiner’s report lists the cause of death as lobar pneumonia complicating AIDS. Other conditions include atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. No drugs were detected in Villamore’s system.

Citing information from police, the docuement says a man who was walking his dog at about 7:15 p.m. December 8 saw Villamore curled up under a blanket in the doorway of 532 Castro Street, which is near 18th Street. The man thought Villamore was asleep.

The next day at about noon, he noticed Villamore in the same spot. He wasn’t able to wake him up, so he called 911. Paramedics arrived and pronounced Villamore dead. The medical examiner determined the date of death to be December 8.

Just after Villamore’s death, a memorial was created in the doorway where he died. (Photo: Rick Gerharter)

The file says a police officer indicated that he’d seen Villamore a week beforehand at 18th and Hartford streets and told him he couldn’t loiter.

Villamore “cussed at the officer and was cantankerous, but essentially the interaction was unremarkable,” the report says. “He voiced no complaint of illness and didn’t exhibit any signs of acute stress at that time.”

Told of the medical examiner’s report, Kilgore said that given Villamore’s inconsistency in taking his medication, the cause of death wasn’t surprising, but he expressed relief that there was no appearance of foul play.

Kilgore said he also wasn’t surprised that Villamore had had money with him when he died.

“We got him on disability, so he was getting $1,300 a month,” Kilgore said. “He just couldn’t be housed. He couldn’t stay away from drugs. … I don’t know how many places he lost because of it.”

Kilgore said he was glad that it appeared that Villamore hadn’t been using drugs when he died.